Ebay - The Most Powerful Google Adwords Customer

Ebay has a massive online advertising budget and a big chunk of that is devoted for buying Adsense ads on Google properties.

[EBay spends around $25 million on Google ads every quarter and are the single largest buyer of Google search ads, according to Nielsen/NetRatings.]

When Google tried to win eBay customers by hosting a similar party, eBay pulled down their Advertising campaign. More here.

And this is the second time that Google has tried to play spoilsport in the eBay party:

Two years ago, rumor has it that Google recruiters showed up at eBay Live in San Jose. They tried to recruit the eBay employees who were manning the booths and doing their jobs interacting with the eBay community.

To me, that crosses the line. More than offensive, it is just bad business practice - you don’t show up at your customer’s offices/events and try to recruit their employees. I’m not sure eBay said or did anything.